Key Takeaways
- A 37-year-old Lewisville barber found $128,514 in cash and 19 checks sitting on a Bank of America ATM and immediately tried to return them.
- After a label led him to a nearby Chick-fil-A that denied ownership, he called 911, and police confirmed every dollar matched the receipt inside the bag.
- Investigators said a Brink’s technician accidentally left the bags behind while servicing the ATM; Bank of America thanked the anonymous barber, who received no reward.
A barber from Lewisville, Texas, is reported to have walked up to a Bank of America ATM to pull out cash, but instead came upon a bag containing $128,514 — and decided to do the right thing.
According to CBS News, the 37-year-old spotted the money around 10 A.M. on August 3 outside the bank on West Main Street, where a second, smaller bag held 19 checks. Nothing was missing by the time officers took custody of it.
A label on one of the bags pointed toward a Chick-fil-A down the road, so the man, who was with a 42-year-old woman at the time, drove the cash straight to the restaurant to see if the money was theirs. A manager at the fast food eatery told him that it wasn't.
"Based on some of the contents of the bag, the citizen believed that it belonged to a Chick-fil-A down the road. So he took it to that Chick-fil-A in hopes of returning it to the rightful owner," Lewisville Police Chief Brook Rollins said of the incident. "It did not belong to that Chick-fil-A, so the citizen, with Chick-fil-A standing there, went ahead and called 911 to have officers come and secure the money."
A responding officer counted the bills twice, then ran them through a digital currency counter. The total matched a bank receipt inside the bag listing exactly $128,514, and the money was sealed into the department's property room.
Investigators traced it to Bank of America and its cash vendor, Brink's. A technician had serviced the ATM and was supposed to collect the bags, but left them on the machine instead.
"The bag was just sitting there. There was no indication of a crime occurring. It looked like it was just left there by accident," Detective Gina Miller said.
Chief Rollins commended the man who found the money, saying that he never hesitated once he had the bags in hand. "This person didn't blink. They took it directly to where they thought it was supposed to be," he said. "There's a lot of good people out there that really do want to do good. There are more people than just this one person."
The barber wasn’t rewarded for his actions, although Bank of America has expressed its gratitude to the man, who didn’t want to be publicly identified, for doing the right thing.
